As an example of Apple’s success in this area, let’s look at one particular product.

I chose the 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina because it seems, at first blush, uncharacteristically pedestrian and unrefined for an Apple product. But for me it was a lesson in seeing through the seemingly unremarkable appearance.

When I first saw the Retina Pro 13 at an Apple store, I recoiled. It didn’t seem to have the usual Apple panache or design boldness. And it was thicker — despite being smaller — than the 15.4-inch Pro Retina.

Who at Apple green-lighted this design? Certainly not Steve Jobs. He would’ve unceremoniously fired the design team. That was my gut reaction.

In fact, I now believe that the 13-inch Retina Pro is a case study in how carefully Apple calibrates designs.

Thick or thin? To wit, the Pro’s thickness (though actually pretty thin at 0.75 inches) is necessary. It’s needed to accommodate a battery large enough for the display. Lighting up 4 million pixels (2,560×1,600-pixel density) and delivering up to seven hours of battery life is no mean feat. For me, the battery life has been remarkable. Beating my previous Airs (count ’em, three) and assorted Windows laptops.

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Display details Which brings us to the screen. And what a screen it is. You can’t beat the image detail on a 13-inch 2,560×1,600 screen. The only screens that come close are the Retina display on the iPad 4 or the gorgeous one on the Nexus 10. And I like the scaling that Apple provides. The 1,680×1,080 mode (the highest-resolution mode) is a nice added touch. You just can’t get that flexibility on other 13-inch laptops.

Not too heavy, man At about 3.6 pounds, it’s heavier than an Air. And it’s noticeable when you put it in a bag. But, I’ll argue, that weight was necessary — at least as of October 2012, when the product was announced — for reasons stated above.

No quad-core, no problem When the 13-inch Retina debuted, more than a few reviewers howled because it lacked the four processor cores of its 15-inch Pro cousin. Apple undoubtedly considered this but realized that there’s just so much you can stuff into a 13-inch laptop with a power-hungry Retina display. Even with the Pro moniker. And Apple was right. Striking the right balance, by definition, means things get sacrificed. What goes is just as important as what stays. I’ll take the great display and good battery life over four cores. Besides, it’s mainstream Core i5 chip isn’t exactly slow.

In conclusion, trusting that a company thinks long and hard about a design and then follows through to make sure that design actually works is important to me — or anybody for that matter. And it’s still pretty rare in the computer industry.

I can think of one very large PC company — which will go unnamed here — that is great at coming up with designs but more often than I would like drops the ball after the product goes out the door.

I’m willing to pay more (maybe a little too much in the case of the Retina Pros) for a product that I believe a company has sweated over.

As long as Apple continues to sweat the details more than its rivals, it will succeed.

The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is nearly finished with a year-long investigation into the methods that large technology companies use to avoid paying U.S. corporate income tax. Apple, for its part, allocates some 70 percent of its income to overseas affiliates where tax rates are much lower.

It appears that all of Apple’s techniques are legal by U.S. law, though some politicians have said that corporations going to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying income tax and that they are violating the spirit of tax laws.

In its statement, Apple said it paid “an enormous amount of taxes” to local, state and federal governments. “In fiscal 2012 we paid $6 billion in federal corporate income taxes, which is 1 out of every 40 dollars in corporate income taxes collected by the U.S. government,” it said.

Apple was one of the first companies to use the accounting scheme called a “Double Irish With a Dutch Sandwich”, where profits are routed through Irish and Dutch subsidiaries before finally landing in the Caribbean. Now, hundreds of companies use those methods.

Apple also has moved revenue to its Braeburn subsidiary in Nevada and International locales where the company pays little to no tax.

Note: Due to the inevitable political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) and Twitter are currently not in discussions on the mobile technology giant taking a stake in the popular social networking site, sources familiar with the matter said.

Apple in recent months has held negotiations with Twitter to explore investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the company, The New York Times reported on Friday, citing people briefed on the matter. The Wall Street Journal said such discussion were held over a year ago, citing a person familiar with the matter.

It is unclear if the two companies talked about a deal in the past and at what level such discussions were held, but there are no current, formal talks between the companies on an investment or acquisition, the sources said.

Both Apple and Twitter declined to comment.

The iPhone and iPad maker typically does not take equity stakes in companies and prefers to acquire technologies by buying up smaller startups that are lesser known. Twitter executives have said repeatedly they are in no rush to seek additional financing, either privately or on public markets, since they have “truckloads” of cash.

Apple has never delved deeply into the social media space dominated byFacebook Inc (FB.O), but it has dabbled in trying to make music more social by launching a social network on iTunes called Ping, which has not caught on.

Twitter, the Internet phenomenon with some 140 million users that allows people to “tweet” 140-character messages, is already well integrated into Apple smartphones and tablets. Apple customers can directly share their comments on Twitter when on their iPhones, iPads or Mac line ofcomputers.

Twitter, the San Francisco-based startup that is viewed as the most significant candidate for the public markets following Facebook, is ramping up its efforts to generate revenue from the 400 million tweets that cross its networks daily.

According to research firm Kantar WorldPanel, iPhone lays claim to 48.1% of US smartphone sales from August 1, 2012 to October 31, 2012. This is “more than double from a year ago” and is within reach of Apple’s high of 49.3% in early 2012. During the same period, Android dropped from 63.3% to 46.7%.Android dominates globally — no one will question that. Even in the United States, before the release of the iPhone 5, Android smartphones sold more than iPhone. With the release of the iPhone 5, however, Apple has regained the crown.

It should be noted, however, even though iPhone 5 has helped iPhone top the market in the US, Android still dominates worldwide… especially in Europe where, during the same period, 64% of smartphone sales in the top five European markets were Android phones whereas 21% were iPhones. It should also be noted that Android will likely regain the top spot in the US in a few months when iPhone 5 fever dies down or when a major Android vendor (namely Samsung) releases a new flagship device.